NightOwl,

Quote:

No, I don't and I no longer have the computer to check for a "prefetch folder". Going Google on "Windows 7 prefetch" gives "a ton" of hits indicating that it does.

Quote:

I took notes. The sizes are net, excluding pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys (installed RAM affects those files):

Windows 7 + drivers + updates to current = ~13,2 GB

+ Office 2007 (Access, Excel, Powerpoint, Publisher and Word) = ~16,4 GB

+ Photoshop CS4 (both 32-bit and 64-bit) = ~16,9 GB

+ Acrobat 9 Standard = ~17,9 GB

+ Nero 7 (Nero Burning Rom and Nero Express only, not the full crapload) = ~18,5 GB

Initially (with 8 GB RAM) pagefile.sys was 8 GB and hiberfil.sys was 6 GB > You can add ~14 GB to the above sizes to get used space.

I don't know why hiberfil.sys is 6 GB. I always thought it equals RAM-size. That file couldn't be moved but I created a split pagefile.sys with the biggest chunk on E: with only 2 GB on C: to fall back on if the other drive fails.

NightOwl,
sorry to hear about your problems but nothing triggers a new build like hardware failure ... ... !

This is the hardware that I used:

Antec P183 and Corsair HX650. This may be a bit "overdone". The case is big with the PSU at the bottom in its own compartment. If you use a lot of HDD's, there's plenty of room. Personally, I would probably opt for Antec Sonata Plus 550 which is slightly smaller but still big and powerful (PSU) enough. (Both PSU's are modular which is cool and practical.)

Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD4 but if you will run two graphics cards in CrossFire/SLI mode, it only supports 1x16 or 2x8, not 2x16.

Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD5450 1GB which was the component that received the least attention and "research". The focus of this computer is "Photoshopping" and I choose a very basic graphics card. Maybe you can find more "bang for the bucks" with another one and if you're a gamer, it's inadequate. The primary reason for choosing it was its passive cooling = silent.

Intel Core i7 860 Quad – 2,80 (3,46) GHz is "a notch down" in price when comparing the hotter 8xx and 9xx processors but it is really fast. I thought about 9xx and triple channel memory but I couldn't justify the higher price.

Corsair CMX8GX3M4A1333C9 which is an 8 GB kit. Photoshop eats RAM and the owner wanted a lot of it. Maybe a 4 GB kit Corsair TW3X4G1333C9A would suffice for most applications. (Also, a 32-bit application, even if running in a 64-bit environment, can only use less than 4 GB so, 8 GB might be a waste of resources.) As you can see, I have chosen the speed and timings officially supported according to Intel, no overclocking.

3 x 1 TB Hitachi P7K1000.C was chosen. I have used Hitachi Deskstar in most of my builds and no problems. They "feel" faster than the corresponding Seagate (the previous generations, at least) but I have not done any serious bench tests.

The main drive with C: = 100 GB and D: = 900 GB. (Don't make C: too small, Windows 7 64 is huge.)

A secondary drive with E: = 500 GB for the pagefile (Windows) + the scratch file (Photoshop) and F: = 500 GB for "what ever". A much smaller drive would suffice but with current prices, the owner wanted three of the same. If the main drive fails, he's up and running on the (former) secondary drive a few minutes and a Ghost restore later. The pagefile and the scratch file are configured to "fall back" on C: if E: is not present.

A backup drive with G: = 900 MB (backup of D:) and H: = 100 MB (Ghost 2003 images of C:) in an ICY BOX IB-138SK-B-II which is a very nice all aluminium rack.

Finally a Sony NEC Optiarc AD-7243S-0B and of course, a floppy drive for my Ghost boot disks.

I hope the links work because I have no time to test. It's way past my bed time ... ... !

I can't think of any "problems" that we haven't discussed already, the build and setup was straight forward. Maybe, if you don't plan on RAIDing, don't install the Marvel RAID driver. It installs itself in the RUN section of the registry and starts every time. Windows 7 doesn't approve and pops up a window, asking permission to let it run. The registry can be edited to prevent auto running and it can still be run from "programs". Maybe the Gigabyte RAID drivers can be avoided as well but they are labeled SATA/RAID. I believe that you can omit those too since W7 SATA drivers seem to work just fine.

One more thing, at my place, W7 and IE8 connected to the LAN without a trace of trouble. I have "real" broadband but my friend has ADSL with a modem. That modem works alright with XP but extremely randomly with W7. A new modem has been ordered but has yet to arrive, so, we still don't know if the new modem is the solution but I think so. The owner is away on a trip which means that some time next week, maybe, I will know.

Quote:

The new modem solved the problems. It is an "all in one" box with one phone line in, two out, four broadband connectors and wireless. Before, there were two boxes "in series", a black box with phone line in-out, and a modem with phone line in and broadband out.

The owner is very pleased with his new BOAC (Box Of Assembled Components) ... ... !

It's even easier in Win7, Brian.  Click the Start button and select the username link at the top of the right column.  Links to all your user folders are there in one place.  Right-click on any one of them, select 'Properties', select the 'Location' tab, and move it to a new location. 

Don't do this or Win7 will create a 100 MB System Reserved Partition which you don't need and is a pain. Create all your partitions before you let the Win7 DVD near your computer. This way the partitions will be cylinder aligned and compatible with Ghost 2003. When you install Win7 to your chosen partition, click Advanced and click Format. Sometimes Win7 won't install unless you do this Format.

Do you think it's a real person, Brian?  Perhaps it's some kind of script or robot.  Doesn't seem to have a real purpose yet, but maybe some spammer experimenting or tweaking some code before "putting it into production"?

Profile says only 5 posts, all in the last 4 days.  Here are all five, with corresponding links to the original sources:


http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1266475919/21#21
http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1266475919/4#4

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1170184062/167#167
http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1170184062/2#2

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1265924057/66#66
http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1265924057/3#3

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1265924057/68#68
http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1265924057/1#1

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1276041214/19#19
http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1276041214/2#2


Note they all repeat in the original thread, always one of the thread's earliest posts, and they never add any original text--which makes me wonder if it's really a human posting.

Hi guys,  I see this hasn`t been discussed in some time but I wanted to relay my experience with multiple HDDs on some motherboards.
I too have a Gigabyte board and the only way I could get my computer to run properly 24/7 was to hook up each SATA drive and reboot.  I then observed it`s recognized location in BIOS and changed it to the location I had chosen to start.  For example, it just so happens that 2:1 is my first hard drive because 1:1 is for CD/DVD drive.

Another problem I had was a Seagate 160G drive I hated to leave idle after I had bought a larger one.  This (old Seagate) drive was advertised as needing no jumpers and the Seagate manual that came with it did not even discuss master/slave jumper configurations.  Boy, did it give me a fit!  For years!  It is now retired.

Finally, I think Windows gets its dress blown up over its face sometimes and just gets flustered.  For example at this time I have my primary/master harddrive seperated into 4 partitions with C drive being the first.  But disk management chooses to show C drive last on the disk management UI.  When I Ghost my C drive using 8.2, 8.2 recognizes C drive as being the first partition and the other 3 as being hidden as it should because that is the way I have it set up, as a multiboot harddrive.  Thanks Dan Goodell and many others for your information that helped me to make this happen.

Anyway, from now on I have decided to arrange my harddrives according to what BIOS will show as opposed to the manual (which in my case didn`t agree with my BIOS) or Windows.  Cheers!

plain

Ah, well to clarify what I had written earlier, by stating 1:1 I meant my first master/slave SATA connections.  I no longer have IDE for CD player or hard disks.  Sorry I wasn`t clear.  But as far as the C partition, I actually can have up to 4 on the first hard disk because of my multiboot configuration.  3 of those are the ones I had stated that are hidden.  I use GAG on a floppy to change from one to another.

Anyway,  I have to study this thread some more because I am thinking of purchasing Windows 7 and want a Ghost solution for backing up to an external drive and this seems to point me in the right direction.  Thanks guys for all your hard work in figuring out how to do this.  I just wish 8.2 would work.  It is so easy.